


Get an apartment in DC.

by emef



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Cohabitation, Lust, M/M, Pining, Yoga pants, more lust than pining tbh, the characters are fictional but the statistics are real
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-03 01:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1725470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emef/pseuds/emef
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The continuing saga of Steve’s lust for Bucky. Updating every three days or so.</p><p>EDIT 2017/09/20 - this story is an abandoned story! Sorry about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I read this tweet:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> (Originally posted [here](https://twitter.com/official_bucky/status/463460416921014273).)
> 
> and the next thing I knew, I was scribbling CATWS fic. Thanks to enemyofperfect for pre-reading <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve first experiences it as a distraction.

Steve first experiences it as a distraction. He keeps track of the things that distract him; always has. He was brought up to think that the early bird gets the worm, that actions speak louder than words, and he was brought up to believe in mind over matter. So he learned, long ago, to keep track of distractions, and only think of them when he had time.

The fabric of Bucky's t-shirt is pulled tightly across his torso, and pools slightly at the base of his spine. The light is falling on it just so, while he stands at the kitchen counter, buttering toast. He's taken to sleeping in yoga outfits, skintight yet soft-looking, and sometimes keeps wearing them all day.

Steve doesn't realize he's staring until Bucky stretches up to reach for a mug, his back arching. The movement brings him back to reality, but Steve doesn't look away, he follows the curve of Bucky's spine all the way up to the nape of his neck. He wants to touch it, he realizes, and suddenly experiences something resembling the embarrassment he felt the first time someone handed him a rifle, and he dropped it. 

It's tempting to chalk it up to modern issues. Steve has seen news items about same-sex marriage legislation. He hasn't given it any thought, but he supposes that somewhere, in the back of his mind... 

The trouble comes when Bucky crawls into bed with him one night, and Steve finds himself wanting things. Wanting to brush Bucky's hair away from his face. Wanting to bend down and kiss Bucky's shoulder. He wants to do it, he wants to smush his face against Bucky's scars and touch them with his tongue. But he doesn't; he doesn't know where this urge comes from, whether it's okay, whether it's something he can do. He wasn't taught the rules of this; Natasha didn't tell him.

He whispers, "everything okay, Buck?"

Bucky groans softly, rolling over so that his back is facing Steve. And Steve doesn't know what to do, he doesn't, so he places his hand at the nape of Bucky's neck, and leaves it there. Bucky's neck is full of tension, but Steve feels it slacken incrementally under his hand, and he goes back to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to lim for beta <3

Sometimes Steve picks up magazines people leave on the subway. "Be the Best You," their covers proclaim. "Authentic Happiness." He flicks through them absently, generally more interested in the full colour, glossy photography - still a novelty to him - than in anything else.

The importance of being the best you. The magazines don't go so far as to define the words "best" or "authentic," so they're relative concepts, he supposes. He turns the page, and is startled to find a huge photograph of himself. From a press conference last month - he's showing the mayor of New York his shield, and grinning. The mayor had been very nice, he remembers. Told him his father's side of the family was from Brooklyn.

Steve goes to the office. He says hello to the Felicity in the security booth, and punches his code into the elevator keypad. He rides up, looking into the mirrored doors. He raises an eyebrow at himself. Natasha picked out these clothes.

The day goes by quickly, and he heads to the grocery store before going home. He's been trying to teach himself to cook. He's pretty sure that, with whatever Dr. Erskine did to him, it doesn't really matter what he eats, but he likes broccoli, so.

Dr. Erskine would probably have called Steve authentic, if anyone had asked.

Steve unlocks the door to his apartment and sees Bucky, seated at the kitchen table, frowning at a newspaper. He thinks he doesn't feel _in_ authentic. He thinks: he wants Bucky to be here all the time.

"Hey, Bucks," Steve says.

Bucky looks up, and his eyes are blank, like he might be looking at Steve, or he might be looking at the wall behind him. He doesn't smile like he used to, but Steve doesn't care. He's happy to see him. Not that Steve is happy about the events that led to Bucky sitting here, at his kitchen table. Of course he isn't. He's just... He doesn't know what he is.

"Are you okay?" Bucky asks, suddenly.

He's been standing in front of the door, Steve realizes. "Yeah, I'm, yeah."

So he sets the groceries down on the counter, and hangs up his coat, while Bucky watches him. Neither one of them says anything. Steve thinks, it's probably tactless to discuss authentic personalities with someone who does not remember who they are most of the time.

"I brought Fruit Loops," he says instead.

Bucky's eyes light up. His love of Fruit Loops would be funny if it wasn't one of the very few things that consistently make him happy. That's authentic, Steve thinks.

He gives Bucky a manly backslap. "Want to watch 'The Hunt for Red October' again later?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Charloween and lim for beta

It creeps up on him when he least expects it. Bucky leans over the table to say something, and Steve goes from thinking about the crossword, to thinking about Bucky's mouth, before he even knows what's happened. It's so suggestive, he thinks, before catching himself, and forcing himself to look back down at the newspaper. Bucky doesn't seem to notice, however, and goes from leaning, to sitting on the table, to practically straddling it, his yoga pants stretched obscenely between his legs.

 

"Breathe," he says.

 

Startled, Steve looks up. "What?"

 

"A seven-letter word for 'to feel free of restraint'. Breathe."

 

"Oh. Oh!" Steve exclaims. "Thanks, Bucks." He says, and writes down BREATHE in six across.

 

Barefoot and oblivious, Bucky shuffles off to pop more bread in the toaster. He looks like an overgrown kitten, all soft angles and graceful movements. Steve half expects him to purr.

 

It's a bright Tuesday morning in Washington DC, and the kitchen is flooded with sunshine. Steve shifts the newspaper away from a too-bright sunbeam, and pours himself more coffee. Eight across: a five-letter word for 'sacked and burnt'. Blaze - no - heated - too many letters -

 

FIRED, he writes.

 

He thinks, Bucky never hesitated to do whatever he wanted, back in the day. If he wanted Steve like that, he would climb on top of him and shove his hand down Steve's pants. He'd just do it. He already crawls into Steve's bed every other night. If that was what he wanted, he'd crawl in without any clothes. He'd push Steve down, in Steve's own sheets, in Steve's own bed, where he's already welcome to everything else Steve has, and he would - he would something.

 

Steve isn't really sure what would happen next - his daydreams usually stop right around there. There's just a shapeless haze of want after that. A blur of pounding hearts and shallow breaths.

 

When Steve looks up again from the newspaper, Bucky is fishing something out of the refrigerator. He is bending over, limber and agile, apparently intent on examining every single orange in the fruit drawer before picking one. Steve spills coffee all over the crossword, and narrowly avoids splashing his pants.

 

"Time to go to work!" He says brightly.


	4. Chapter 4

Sometimes Bucky takes off for days at a time, reinforcing Steve's image of him as an overgrown kitten. All dark and agile. He pictures Bucky escaping through the window, and thinks, he'll come back.

Steve keeps Bucky's bed ready for him while he's gone, and washes his yoga outfits, folding them carefully. He gets new records - the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Jacques Brel, and something called 'Lucho Bermúdez Y Su Orquesta' - and wonders which ones Bucky will like. He goes for evening runs as well as morning runs.

He listens to the Jacques Brel album, and regrets it as soon as he reaches the fourth track. The song is called 'Ne me quitte pas', which translates to 'don't leave me', and Steve is hit with a vivid memory of Bucky's fall from the train. It was a long time ago, and Steve has always trained himself not to dwell on things, but the song -

_Laisse-moi devenir_  
 _L'ombre de ton ombre_  
 _L'ombre de ta main_  
 _L'ombre de ton chien_  
 _Ne me quitte pas_  
 _Ne me quitte pas_  
 _Ne me quitte pas_  
 _Ne me quitte pas_

(Let me be for you  
The shadow of your shadow  
The shadow of your hand  
The shadow of your dog  
Do not leave me now  
Do not leave me now  
Do not leave me now  
Do not leave me now)

\- prompts a wave of emptiness and grief. It's strange, maybe, to be sad for something this way, but maybe that's what happens with grief. It gets stocked up.

Steve falls asleep on the couch, clinging to a throw pillow. The next day is Saturday, and he goes out for breakfast and reads the entire Washington Post. Ukraine, Syria, student loans, the Turing test. Steve met Alan Turing once, he remembers, though he wasn’t told his name at the time. He’d asked Steve questions about German troop movement procedures, and had been unable to look Steve in the eye. He’d repeatedly offered him tea. He’d - abruptly, Steve sits back in his diner booth. _Oh_.

Bucky's back when Steve gets home. He has a long scratch on his right cheekbone, which somehow makes him even more attractive, and acts like nothing's happened. Or, he doesn't say anything, anyway. He's eaten everything in the refrigerator.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve sleeps and dreams about kissing Bucky. His mouth is on Bucky's shoulder; he is running his tongue over the skin. In the dream, Bucky’s muscles shift, and it’s familiar: it’s something he knows. Steve wants to pull him closer. He wants, and reaches out, but he hits a pillow.

It wakes him. He sits up. Bucky is on the other side of the bed, staring up at him; he always wakes when Steve does. Steve never sees him asleep these days. Sometimes, when Steve is feeling fanciful, he imagines that Bucky never sleeps.

Pulling the blanket up over himself, Steve says, “Sorry I woke you." He can still feel the texture of Bucky’s skin on his tongue.

"You didn't wake me," Bucky says, shaking his head.

"Oh.”

Bucky’s hair, dark and disheveled, fans out over his pillow. Looking up at the ceiling, Bucky breathes in, exhales softly, and then pulls his knees up to his chest, hugging them with both his arms, the left one whirring softly. Then, as Steve watches, Bucky raises his feet, grabs a heel in each hand, and opens his knees slightly wider. He looks incredibly silly, and Steve bursts out laughing.

“In yoga, they call this the happy baby pose,” Bucky tells him. He’s still holding the pose.

Steve grins. “Is this what you do instead of sleeping? Hindu body postures?”

“It lengthens the spine,” Bucky deadpans.

It’s hilarious looking, so Steve decides to try it. He lies on his back, grabbing his feet in his hands, while Bucky corrects him. He’s been meaning to try yoga - it was on his list.

He loses it laughing the first few times, but then he pulls up his feet just as he’s exhaling steadily, and something clicks into place. Bucky keeps saying that a mattress is completely the wrong place to do this, but something just loosens in the lower part of Steve’s spine, and he suddenly feels elated.

“Oh,” Steve says.

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Bucky?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re here.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to lim and charloween for beta.

Phone surveys are a problem. Steve finds this out when he gets home one evening, pizzas in one hand, DVD of The Great Escape in the other, and finds Bucky yelling "NO I DON'T KNOW" into the telephone. He’s wearing turquoise yoga pants.

"Shit,” Steve comments.

Bucky gives Steve a look that is a mixture of distress and exasperation, and Steve sets down the pizzas and the DVD. He gives Bucky a head tilt. Does he want him to... ?

Bucky rolls his eyes and holds out the phone. Steve picks it up. They both lean into the receiver.

"Steve Rogers's phone. Steve speaking. Who is this?"

"Discovery Research Group,” an unruffled voice answers, as though people yelled at them every day, and having Captain America on the line was utterly unsurprising.

Steve absently puts his arm around Bucky, who is still standing next to him, and very warm through his thin clothing. It turns into an awkward one-armed hug. “May I ask the purpose of your call?"

"Yes, sir. This is the 2013 Car Brand Perception Survey."

Bucky responds to the hug by snaking an arm around Steve's middle, and Steve blurts out, “What?"

"We perform telephone survey research, sir."

 _Oh_. "If you ever call here again, I’m going to contact my lawyer," Steve says, and thumbs off the phone.

"I made the questions go away!" he proclaims, untangling himself from Bucky, and heading off towards the kitchen. Natasha taught him to say the thing about the lawyers. Steve wants to believe in the good intentions of all his fellow Americans, including those who work for multinationals, but Natasha says that you have to draw the line somewhere.

Bucky follows him. "I _don't know_ if I like minivans better than mid-size cars, Steve."

“Did they ask you to rank car features?”

Bucky blanches.

“I know what you mean,” Steve says. “I hate ranking things, for some reason.”

Later, Steve falls asleep in front of the television and wakes up during the end credits. He's fuzzy on the edges, and it takes him a full minute to realize that Bucky has fitted himself into the crook of his arm, his left arm jammed in between them, his head on Steve's shoulder. His stubble is so long that it prickles through Steve's shirt.

It occurs to Steve that he's sometimes been comparing Bucky to an overgrown kitten, which is completely wrong. Bucky isn't a cat, let alone a kitten. He's Bucky. He's tall and dark and confusing, he laughs at Steve's jokes, and he knows when Steve needs help even when Steve doesn't know it himself. He is all of those things… and simultaneously none of those things. He's not _like_ anyone, or anything. He's Bucky. And he's... asleep?

The end credit music stops, and abruptly, Bucky gets up from the couch. He stretches, lifts his shirt to scrub his face with it, and then just stands there, blinking slowly. Steve is transfixed.

"Good night!" Bucky says brightly.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where I start throwing plot at it.

Bucky is sprawled sideways on the couch, one leg hooked over the back, his head hanging off the seat. He’s holding a copy of Northanger Abbey in his left hand. His sweater has thumbholes.

“Did you throw yourself on a grenade?” He asks, looking Steve up and down. Steve’s suit is covered in little rips and tears. Before he can answer, Bucky adds, “…again?”

“You heard about that?” Steve says.

Bucky perches his book higher up, so Steve can’t see his face when he mumbles, “‘course I heard about that.”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. Maybe he should have changed before coming home. Today hasn’t been a good day.

He doesn’t, strictly speaking, have job at the moment, but Steve’s been keeping busy. Sometimes he consults for the Secretary of Defense; sometimes he’s a promotional tool for the government. The latter one is the dangerous one.

Elected officials knock at Steve’s door every once in a while, asking his to put his face on various national projects. A few weeks ago, it was for a national food security initiative. It’s been praised by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, but it has otherwise been unpopular, so they thought: let’s ask Captain America for help. Steve said yes, obviously.

So a press conference was scheduled, and Steve worked with some speech writers. He was going to talk about going hungry during his childhood, and how it shouldn’t still be happening in 2014. He liked the speech; he felt good about it. But he never even got as far as ‘hello’ - the minute he walked out onstage, there was a loud noise, and he was hit with what felt like shrapnel. He threw himself on top of the nice man who’d introduced him, dragged him off backstage, and was told by a small army of secret service agents to head home, because the culprits were already in custody.

Steve asked if he could talk to the people who’d attacked him, but the Agency categorically refused. Wouldn’t even tell him where they’d been taken. Which really bothered Steve.

“What happened?” Bucky asks, face still hidden behind Jane Austen.

“The latest Household Food Security Report estimated that 14.5 percent of American households were food insecure at some time during the year.” Steve says, and he looks down at his ruined suit. “And I guess some people really don’t want public funds to be used to change that.”

Bucky peeks over the top of his book. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Steve tells him.

“Shut up,” Bucky says, scowling. “Remember when we didn’t have any money for food?”

Steve starts pulling off his suit. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t believe you when you said you were fine then, either.”

Steve, down to his undershirt, says, “Sorry.”

“And?”

“I - it's fine, Bucky,” Steve says, and he heads to the bedroom to find some undamaged pants.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may have read a totally different version of this chapter. Apologies for the delete/rewrite.

“Hey, Bucky?” Steve asks. “Do you think -“

It’s Tuesday night in Washington DC, and Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes just finished watching Seven Samurai all the way through. The living room is a takeout-cartons-and-soda-bottles disaster area, and they’re both stretched out in positions that shouldn’t be comfortable, but are. Steve is starting to think about just letting himself fall asleep right where he is.

Bucky rolls over, his face suddenly close. “Do I think what?” he asks, his eyes huge and focused.

“Uh,” Steve flounders. “I don’t know.”

A couple of networks broadcast Steve’s speech today - his actual speech, which he prerecorded the day after the press conference disaster. _10 percent of American households with children do not have consistent, dependable access to food_ , he said. _3.9 million households are unable, at some time, to provide adequate, nutritious food for their children_. He smiled at the cameras and shook hands with the right people, and generally looked like a patriotic mouthpiece. No one watching would guess that he’s already started his own investigation into the group who bombed the press conference.

Bucky grins at Steve. “I’m supposed to be the one with the memory problems,” he says, a strand of hair falling over one eye.

“Well, you know, I didn’t want you to feel left out.” Steve deadpans, brushing Bucky’s hair away.

“Punk.”

“Jerk.”

Bucky shifts away from Steve, and then twists around until he’s fully horizontal, with his head in Steve’s lap. He yawns, and pulls a blanket over himself. Steve strokes Bucky’s hair.

“Maybe, deep down,” Steve says, “people don’t really think that the world is different. Maybe they think that - that clothes change, and houses look different, and technologies are faster, but that deep down, it’s all the same.”

The first thing he’d done was gather all the bits of shrapnel still stuck to his suit, and bring them to Stark. He hadn’t been sure if there was any point, but it was all he had. He couldn’t look up anything about the press conference guests without getting the secret service hearing about it. He’d had to explain the whole thing to Stark, but at least Stark wasn’t going to tell him to not to investigate. He might try to insinuate himself into the investigation, but that was another matter.

“I just thought - maybe that’s why people are so angry about subsidies. They think that there’s no point, because they think things never really change.”

Bucky’s eyes flicker up towards him. “You’re going on your own mission, aren’t you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Statistics from last year's [Economic Research Report on food security in the United States](http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err-economic-research-report/err155.aspx#.U7TlyY1dXtN).


	9. Chapter 9

Steve's always been given to brooding. Staring off into space, thinking about meaninglessness.

He usually doesn't immediately notice he's brooding, and today is no different. He starts his day like every other, making toast and picking up the paper. But he stares at the crossword for a full three minutes before picking up a pencil and reading the first clue.

Bucky shuffles in, his bare feet hitting the kitchen floor with a faint pitter-patter (he makes the noise on purpose, to announce himself.) He nods in Steve's direction, but he doesn’t say anything. He's wearing a t-shirt that matches his metal arm, and he hasn't shaved. He starts messing around with the coffee maker.

"Hey Bucks, why do you get up in the morning?" Steve asks.

Bucky hardly even blinks before answering. "Habit. You?"

"Find out what's new in the world."

But some days it's like the world is a blank canvas being drawn on by reckless people. It's been a nearly a month since the incident at the press conference. There wasn't a lot of evidence to go on, but Steve eventually found the place where the bomb was made. He didn't get a lot of new information from it; but he did find some posters of himself. They seemed to have been used for target practice.

Steve grew up unpopular; he doesn’t expect people to like him. But it was still a strange sight. When he was a kid, he'd gotten beaten up by bullies, and in a way, it wasn't personal. Bullies are all beating themselves up, on some level. The posters used for target practice weren't personal either, but they were a symbol, and seeing them defaced was like being witness to a different kind of hate. And Steve feels - perhaps not powerless, but uncertain.

Bucky hands Steve a travel mug full of coffee. "I wanna show you something."

He takes Steve to a place called Extra Space Storage. It's four blocks away; the entrance on a side street. It doesn't look like much, just a eight-storey brick building full of winding, windowless corridors. The floors are yellow linoleum and some of the storage lockers look like they haven’t been opened in years.

Bucky stops in front of locker number 334. "Here," he says, handing Steve a key.

"What's with the surprise, Bucky?" Steve says, opening the door. "Wh - Whoa."

The locker is full of weaponry, ordnance, and equipment. Bucky says, "if you're going on your own mission, you're gonna need this."


End file.
